


homeward slow

by roisale



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roisale/pseuds/roisale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you mind," he begins, abrupt, forgetting their status as strangers, for a moment, "I mean, would you mind if I took your picture?" His hands hover just above his camera with a sort of restless impatience that doesn't belong to him.</p><p>"Seriously?" Nishinoya's eyes go huge, and Ennoshita starts to think that maybe he'd made a mistake, or stepped over the thresholds of what common sense usually dictated, not that societal norms would be of any use here -</p><p>Nishinoya breaks into an enormous smile. "Cool! Yeah, go ahead!"</p><p>  <em>Well, that's that, then<em>, Ennoshita thinks, already raising his camera, and the shutter blinks a second later with a click like finality.</em></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	homeward slow

**Author's Note:**

> well i lied to you when i knocked upon your door / see i was nowhere near your neighborhood / but if this is all in our minds / it's all in our minds / honey, would you mind getting out of mine
> 
> \- all there is, by gregory alan isakov

 

The first time they meet is an accident; by pure chance, the way so many things are. Ennoshita had been taking pictures, per his occupation as a travel photographer, when a motorcycle had puttered in like nobody's business, spewing exhaust in the air and making a general nuisance of itself and its owner. In itself, it hadn't been anything particularly unusual, so Ennoshita'd thought he could just ask the biker to move their bike, allowing the both of them to proceed from there. In retrospect, he really should have known better than to think things would be that easy. 

"Uh," Ennoshita says, looking up at the noisy motorcyclist stopped right at the edge of his viewfinder, "sorry, I'm in the middle of a shoot, would you mind moving out of the way?"

"Oh, sure," he says, scooting away dutifully to take off his helmet. He waits until Ennoshita snaps a few more pictures, slouched over the handlebars of his bike. Then he says, "I'm Nishinoya, by the way! What about you?"

There are three things Ennoshita notices about Nishinoya in the seconds since his introduction: the first is that there is an absurd amount of gel in his hair. The second is the sharp around his eyes, the inquisitive set of his mouth; the third, the slender grace of his hands, when he tugs off his gloves to hold one out for shaking. So Ennoshita opts to stare at Nishinoya's outstretched hand, wondering if it's a normal thing for complete strangers to introduce themselves without a prepared reason. Maybe he'd grown up abroad? God only knew. "Hello," he says, taking his hand with a wary kind of hesitation, "Um. I'm Ennoshita, and here's my business card, I guess."

Nishinoya studies the card, tongue poking out between his lips in concentration. It is perhaps a little more focus than Ennoshita would personally exert to read a business card, but to each his own, he supposes. "So you work in Miyagi, Chikara?"

There is something fundamentally wrong with calling people by their first names five minutes after meeting, but Nishinoya makes it work out, somehow. Ennoshita shifts on his feet, fiddles with his camera. "Yeah. I do travel shots, for the most part."

"I'm actually from around there, but I've only driven around the city you work in, I think," Nishinoya's saying, when Ennoshita raises his head again.

This is his first mistake: looking up at the way the light and dust motes dance golden around Nishinoya and his beat-up leather jacket, thinking that everything about it is just right, just -  

"Do you mind," he begins, abrupt, forgetting their status as strangers, for a moment, "I mean, would you mind if I took your picture?" His hands hover just above his camera with a sort of restless impatience that doesn't belong to him.

"Seriously?" Nishinoya's eyes go huge, and Ennoshita starts to think that maybe he'd made a mistake, or stepped over the thresholds of what common sense usually dictated, not that societal norms would be of any use here - 

Nishinoya breaks into an enormous smile. " _Cool_! Yeah, go ahead!"

_Well, that's that, then_ , Ennoshita thinks, already raising his camera, and the shutter blinks a second later with a click like finality.

 

"How was the trip," Kinoshita says when Ennoshita comes back. His fingers look like they're dancing on the keyboard as he draws up a word document.

"Fine," Ennoshita says. He shrugs off his bag, sets the punched-off ends of train tickets on his desk. "Took pictures, the usual. Kind of."

"Hope you don't mind going on another one," Kinoshita says, hitting print. The printer drones and hums and chirps, churns out a few documents with a slight rattle. Ennoshita picks them up, presses the flat of his palm against the warm paper.

His next assignment: a scenic mountain range he's never heard of before. He's back at the office in a week, the job finished up neat and tidy: forgettable in a flash drive, and even that disappears, after a while.

 

Two months later, Ennoshita runs into Nishinoya again, in another far-off prefecture he's never been to. It all starts off with a clackety engine roar and an odd sense of foreboding he will come to expect in future encounters.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before," Ennoshita asks, as if he doesn't already know the answer. There's proof, too, to further cement the situation: a photo he can't seem to put anywhere but his camera, timestamped with last month's numbers. It'd felt inexplicably wrong to keep it in a computer; the detachment too clinical.

("I don't think you're being sentimental, for what it's worth," Narita had offered, a slight smile seeping through the edges of his voice. "Artistic license and whatnot, right?") 

("Right," Ennoshita had said, leaving enough space for safety between the words, "I think.")

And so, the reappearances: the same clever hands, sharp eyes, an impish mouth bent curious. Nishinoya Yuu, ever-present and so terribly larger-than life, kicks out the sidestand of his motorcycle and says, "Hey - Chikara, right? Didn't think I'd see you here. Does your boss hate you?"

'Here' is: a wayward swatch of scenic countryside, complete with grazing cows and scattered farmhouses. Ennoshita slides a deliberate glance at his camera and equipment. "No, he's pretty nice," Ennoshita says, deeming it necessary to uphold Daichi's good name, "We just get a lot of… odd jobs." 

"Weird," Nishinoya says.  _Are you really in a position to say that_ , Ennoshita wants to say, but he keeps his mouth shut out of common courtesy.

"Right," Ennoshita says, before it occurs to him: "Wait, I  _did_ give you my business card last time, right?"

"Nah, you did." Nishinoya fishes around in an inside pocket of his jacket, flips Ennoshita's business card out between his fingers. "I don't have a phone, though."

Ennoshita raises an eyebrow. "Really," he says, "It's not 2006 any more, you know." 

"Excuse you," Nishinoya protests, running a hand through his hair, and Ennoshita tries not to laugh, tries not to think about the sharp angle of his elbow and how it'd look on his camera screen. What he does instead is smile; he smiles small and keeps talking, finds words like pennies in a fountain.

It ends like this: they say good-bye, and Ennoshita almost believes it when Nishinoya says,  _hey, see you around, yeah?_

As it turns out, he has a good reason to.

 

(Sometimes, Nishinoya is the kind of storm that appears on the horizon long before it hits, the sound of his motorcycle like thunder booming in the distance. Ennoshita starts to appreciate the noise, tucks it behind his thoughts like a severe-weather-warning. Like this, he can at least pretend he sees it coming.)

(For the most part, though, Nishinoya has a somewhat inconvenient tendency to show up swift and silent out of nowhere.)

(All said, he's kind of a pain in the ass. But that's okay; things like that are okay, every now and then.)

 

The fourth run-in they have goes a little like this: an 8 am coffee break in some far-off little town stowed away in the Ishikawa prefecture. It'd been a funny thing, really. Ennoshita had ordered a cappuccino and made his way over to a window seat, half-expecting to see Nishinoya's motorcycle parked out in the parking lot. And there it was, sitting sleek and flashy in the near-empty parking lot, like it had every business being there.

"You again," Ennoshita sighs now, without any bite. He'd gotten used to the coincidental aspect of their relationship, somewhere along the line. Kinoshita says it's fate, or luck so dumb it's almost genius. Narita says it's serendipity. For the most part, Ennoshita's given up thinking much about it except for the fact that it just _is_ , one way or another. "How've you been?"

Nishinoya grins, plops down on the chair across from him with his mug between his fingers. "Great! Just came out here from Kanazawa to see the festival! What about you?"

"They sent me out here to photograph the Abare Festival, actually," Ennoshita says, waving away a few wafts of steam from his cup. "I'm not surprised you're here, though. It sounds like something you'd like."

"It sounds _badass,_ " Nishinoya tells him. He downs half his drink in a few massive gulps. Ennoshita can only hope he doesn't scald the roof of his mouth or anything. "Bonfires and setting stuff on fire and smashing stuff, _while it's on fire_ \- " 

Ennoshita begins to fear for Nishinoya's well-being. "You never told me you were a pyromaniac," he says, mildly alarmed. "Besides, I don't think you get to set anything on fire unless you're part of the ritual." 

"Well, no," Nishinoya concedes. He leans across the table, fingers sliding with the swoop of imbalance. For once, Ennoshita doesn't lean away. He's all sharp eyes and the flash of teeth, he's saying, "do you want to go together?"

It is, in all probability, not the best idea to agree. But because it's Nishinoya asking and because there is a certain something about Nishinoya that makes Ennoshita feel a little like being reckless --  

"Okay," Ennoshita says. And maybe this is another mistake, but he hides the doubt behind easy acquiescence; hides the smile, too.

 

The festival is in full swing by the time Ennoshita starts taking pictures. He can feel sweat beading up on his forehead, brought on by the smothering heat from the bonfires driving the festival, and he winces, thinks, _that's kind of gross_ , before going back to work. Everything's tinted red, from the people to the lights, and Ennoshita snaps a few more photos, studies the arc of strung lanterns in miniature on his screen, making sure the composition isn't too off. 

"Hey, let's go see the fire," Nishinoya hiccups, popping up at his elbow out of apparent nowhere. 

"Oh, my God," Ennoshita says, peering down at Nishinoya, who stares back at him, flushed red. "You're not drunk, are you?"

Nishinoya wrinkles his nose, tugs along Ennoshita by the wrist. "Nah," he says, audible even over the rush of noise as the proceedings keep carrying on. "Not yet. Maybe? I have no idea. C'mon, Chikara, you need to," he slips through an opening in the crowd with inexplicable elegance, "loosen up a bit, or like, a  _lot._ This is like a party. Are you fun at parties?"

"I'm here for work," Ennoshita tries to say. "And I don't think - "

"Party," Nishinoya insists, and Ennoshita tells himself he's already taken enough on-scene pictures for the night, anyway. An hour or two passes in a blur of heat and sparks and general party-going, until it really does get too hot for comfort. Somehow or another, they end up on the riverbank across from the actual festival, where Ennoshita extricates himself from Nishinoya's grasp with cautious precision and sits him down on the grass. Nishinoya flops on his back, laughing for no discernible reason. 

"Please," Ennoshita sighs, sitting down next to him. "I know the festival's almost over, but I'm not letting you on your motorbike until you're completely sober."

"I get that a lot," Nishinoya tells him. "Are you going to drop me in the river? That's happened before, you know."

"No, I don't think I want to know," Ennoshita says. 

Nishinoya cracks his knuckles. "Are you sure, because it's a pretty cool story - " 

"I'll pass, thanks," Ennoshita says, ending it there. It's quiet for the next few minutes until Nishinoya opens his mouth and starts talking again, recounting various party stories and other anecdotes of the same nature. 

"What am I going to do with you," Ennoshita says, cutting him off in the middle of a tale regarding his college quest to find Tokyo Tower at three in the morning. He means Nishinoya, but he says it mostly to the summer night air, says it like a sentence instead of a question, because it's not, really.

This and that, a matter of fact: "That's up to you, isn't it?"

Ennoshita stares at his hands. "I guess," he says, and they lapse into a still hush again, the only noise coming from the festivities going on across the river. 

"So what _do_ you want to do," Nishinoya says, after a little while, falling into sudden seriousness. He nudges Ennoshita in the side, sits up straight.

"That's… pretty vague." Ennoshita brings his knees to his chest and crosses his arms on top. Nishinoya isn't talking about himself, Ennoshita knows, so he takes a few moments of consideration. If he starts small, there are a few things that come to mind without much thinking. There's a little bakery just off the main roads, kitty corner to his favorite bookstore, and he'd been meaning to go in for a while, now, because Yachi's birthday is coming up, and Tsukishima's a few weeks after that, and the two of them like cake, don't they? And there's a new movie by one of his favorite directors that's premiering next Tuesday, and he'd like to go see it when he's got more free time on his hands, since it's an adaptation of an old story he used to love as a child, and still loves even now, if he's being honest. If he ever gets the chance, traveling abroad sounds good, sounds great, sounds like a wonderful tangle of places and people he'll never see the same again. There are a lot of things he wants to do. So he thinks about it. It's a hard question to answer.

Nishinoya sprawls out on the grass, takes up a good deal more room than he really ought to, all things considered. He's quiet, his mouth soft around the edges. The silence sounds like expectation.

"Something worth doing," Ennoshita says at last, picking out the words with a slowness that feels like wading through water. 

The pyre sinks slow in the river, chunks of lit wood falling from the top and dying angry in the water. From here, shadows flicker faint across Nishinoya's face, like the distance had been too great to defeat for the fire. But Nishinoya's smile is bright anyway, like always, like he's lit up from the inside out. 

"I think you could do anything, you know, as long as you wanted to," Nishinoya says.

It almost sounds possible, coming from him. "And why's that?"

Nishinoya stretches his arms above his head, rolls his shoulders in a smooth shrug. "Why not?" 

"It sounds easy, when you put it like that," Ennoshita says.

He looks genuinely curious when he asks, "Who says it isn't?" 

Slow inhale, heavy exhale; weighed-down breathing. "I guess you're right."

 

The sixth time they meet is just as much of an unlikely coincidence as the past five have been, but it's still a little different, somehow. This is probably because when Ennoshita hears the guttural groan of an engine that someone really ought to fix, he whips around to see who, so fast he almost drops his camera.

(It's another mistake, but there's a very particular thing about mistakes: that is, after you've made enough of them, you stop keeping count.)

Nishinoya pulls over, and Ennoshita nods an obligatory hello before asking, "How does this keep happening?"

"No clue," he says, chipper as always. "But hey, good to see you again!"

"Yeah," Ennoshita says, giving up on trying to make sense of anything in the world. "You, too."

 

("I thought about it some more," Ennoshita says, later, when they're waiting on nothing, sitting on a park bench in the late afternoon. "What I want to do, I mean. And I - I don't really know what it is, exactly, but - ")

("That's easy, then," Nishinoya says, holding out his hand. Sunset-gilded fingers, calloused palms - )

("Easy," Ennoshita repeats. He thinks it over. He doesn't think about taking Nishinoya's hand, but he does it anyway.)

(In the months to come, the words Ennoshita will remember the most are these: "Yeah, I mean, you have time to find out," Nishinoya says, maddeningly reasonable in the strangest way, "so what's stopping you?")

 

"Hey, your flight's tomorrow, isn't it," Nishinoya says, swinging a leg over his motorcycle with casual grace. The engine starts up with a low growl that sounds like - home, somebody's home, for sure, if not his. Ennoshita doesn't feel homesick, though, hasn't felt homesick in a long, long while. 

"I board at seven-ten tomorrow morning, yeah," he says, wondering if Nishinoya's always looked this bright, or if it's just the sunset spilling red-gold over his skin. The stretch of street lamps and power lines behind them sits like an exit sign, as if it's not too late to fix - this, whatever ' _this_ ' is, whatever the two of them are doing, whatever they _keep_ doing - 

Nishinoya keeps his helmet between his hands, spinning it this way and that under his palms, tapping his fingers over the visor. He could be a pianist, Ennoshita thinks, disjointed and distracted; no, he could be a painter, a writer, he could be anything if he was anywhere -

"Meet me on the riverbank at seven," Nishinoya's saying, when Ennoshita snaps back around to the right side of reality. "I hear the stars look  _really_  cool from there!"

 

And so, in a series of events that shouldn't surprise him or anyone else in the least, Ennoshita ends up on the empty riverbank at seven p.m. It's a relatively comfortable temperature out, but the wind chill raises a few goosebumps on the skin of his arms.

"Hey, Chikara," Nishinoya shouts from a little ways away. His voice fills the space more than the air, covers up the rumbly roar from his motorbike. Ennoshita makes his way over, still not entirely sure why he'd agreed to come.

"You really need to fix your bike," Ennoshita says when he gets close enough to comment. "Are you sure it's not violating any traffic safety laws?" 

"Well," Nishinoya starts. Ennoshita waits. A few more seconds pass before he concludes that the ensuing lack of speech is Nishinoya's answer and thus better left unquestioned. 

They settle down on the riverbank. The grass pokes against his palms, leaves them wet from water and gathered-up moonlight. Nishinoya's talking about something or another, pointing out major constellations and making his own up to fill the gaps in knowledge. The moon hasn't risen properly yet, and the stars are still in the process of scattering down the sky, so Ennoshita waits, listens to himself and Nishinoya, talking about nothing and everything in the world, it feels like, until there's a proper spread of silver dust high up above. 

"So," Ennoshita says, after they've found ten constellations and made up twenty more.

Nishinoya looks at him. "So?"

"What kind of hair gel do you use," Ennoshita says. Nishinoya tilts his head, mouth half-open to reply, and Ennoshita adds, "No, don't get me wrong. I think your hairstyle is completely unnecessary - " he ignores Nishinoya's indignant  _hey!_ and keeps going, "- but you never get helmet hair, and you really should, because according to physics, your hair shouldn't be able to  _do_ that, unless it's like, rubber cement that's keeping it up - "

"I don't know anything about physics," Nishinoya pouts, "and you know what, my hair is  _great_ , so great that maybe - "

"Your hair is questionable at best," Ennoshita tells him, "but not enough to bypass the rules of the natural world. I'm sorry."

" _Hey_ ," Nishinoya says again, sounding seriously affronted. He throws his arms around Ennoshita's waist, knocks the both of them off balance. The damp grass presses cold against Ennoshita's back and Nishinoya rests his chin on Ennoshita's chest, says, "Weren't you supposed to be polite?"

"Maybe," he says, on the verge of laughing himself breathless for no real reason. It's just - he's never felt so _silly_ , sprawled in the grass -

Nishinoya props himself up, his elbows digging into Ennoshita's chest. "There's no  _maybe_  about it, you were definitely nicer before I got to know you - " he leans in, "and you know what? You're lucky you're cute, because - "

"You," Ennoshita says, not bothering to heave Nishinoya off of him, "are _ridiculous_."

Nishinoya laughs like he means it, rubs their cheeks together. It is, on the whole, horrifyingly affectionate. The worst thing is, Ennoshita can't even find it in him to mind. "But you like me, right," Nishinoya hums, and Ennoshita groans, splays his hand over Nishinoya's face. Nishinoya pouts under his palm, waits for Ennoshita to drop it before he nudges his face in the curve between neck and shoulder, lips pressing a smile against skin, saying, "Hey, c'mon - " 

And his last mistake is this: a helpless curve of his mouth to match, his fingers in Nishinoya's hair, the words tumbling unbidden: "Yeah," he says, all easy admittance and careless honesty, "I do."

 

"You got a promotion," Kinoshita says, twelve days after Ennoshita slides another two plane ticket stubs across his desk. "Kind of." 

Ennoshita types in a file name for the folder, clicks _save_ , and exhales slow, swivelling around in his chair. "I'm not going to like this, am I?" 

Kinoshita fidgets on his feet, touches the tips of his fingers to each other like static cling. "You _might_ ," he says, as if the words are a disclaimer he's legally obligated to give, "But uh, no, probably not. Daichi's getting - transferred, I think you're taking over for him?"

"Oh," Ennoshita says, processing the information. "In all honesty, I can't say I ever thought I'd be your boss." 

Skittish fingers, worried mouth. "You don't mind?" 

"Well, I mean," he hesitates, tries to find the right words, settles for, "I can't do much about it, so I might as well, you know..." 

Kinoshita shrugs, shoulders hunching up, folding in. "It's just - you know, you were kind of the default choice for middle-of-nowhere jobs and now you're _not_ , and it's weird, but it kind of felt like you started to like it, after a while - ?"

He can admit that much, at the very least.

 

Week one:

Daichi'd taken care of any pesky loose ends before he'd transferred, like the excellent boss he'd always been and still is, probably. Ennoshita spends most of his first week sitting idle at his new desk, filing paperwork and handing out new assignments. The office runs itself without any major snags, and Daichi drops in every now and then for a cup of coffee and a leisurely sort of chat. This is how he learns there are two new employees in Daichi's section, named Hinata and Kageyama, and that the two of them are both brilliant and complete idiots at the same time. 

"They're so  _good_ when they work together, even if they bicker like schoolboys most of the time," Daichi laughs, shaking his head. He takes a long sip from his mug. Ennoshita gets the feeling he's been running on coffee and spare fumes for a while, now. "But you know, at least it's never boring over there."

Ennoshita nods, leans his cheek on his hand as he stirs his coffee. Contrary to Daichi's new workplace, his old one is comfortable, quiet; there's nothing wrong with it, really, but he's starting to find it dull anyway. "They're not friends just yet, I take it?"

"Not yet, no," Daichi says. "I think they will be, though, in the end. They just need to work things out."

The conversation ends with their lunch break, and Daichi leaves with a smile, saying: "You should meet them sometime."

 

Week two:

He'd never considered that wanderlust might be his downfall, of all things. Once in a while, he'll find himself counting the birds that sit smug on power lines like blots of ink on so many shallow, swooping curves. Because - there's something about the office that doesn't feel right any more, knowing he'll be stuck at a desk job until kingdom come. On Tuesday, he comes across the photo he'd taken of Nishinoya so many months ago, makes a tiny grimace at the screen of his camera before he shuts it down, sets it in the bottom drawer of his desk.

"You need to get out more often," Narita says, even as Kinoshita comes up with another stack of paperwork.

Ennoshita eyes the forms and reports and picks up his pen with a sigh. "Maybe when I finish this," he says, knowing full well that there'll be more work waiting for him as soon as he finishes what's in front of him. 

Kinoshita fishes around a box of paperclips, slides the ends together to make a chain of thin, glinting silver, dangling from his fingers. "Movie night this Friday?"  

"We'll watch as many Broadway musicals as you want," Narita adds, wincing. "Even if you decide to play  _Rent_  three times in a row."

Kinoshita gives Narita an  _are you sure about that_  look, and Narita nods, resolute, like he's already gearing himself up for six hours straight of musical theater, which is, in Ennoshita's opinion, really not the worst fate Narita could have subjected himself to.

"Okay," Ennoshita says, suppressing a laugh, but Kinoshita and Narita catch the hint of a smile anyway, the way they always do. He signs off on another project proposal. "… Thanks."

Narita takes the paper, slides it in a file folder. "You're buying the popcorn. And the pizza."

(At one in the morning, Kinoshita and Narita fall asleep on the couch during the third replay of _Rent_. Ennoshita hits pause, twenty minutes before the end, and turns the TV off. He covers Kinoshita and Narita with blankets, sits next to them, waiting out the clock's ticking until he falls asleep, too.)

(It's a long time coming.)

 

Week four:

He starts missing that cafe in Noto, starts to daydream about hazy pink mornings and noisy red nights. It's always in the most inconvenient of times, like when he's squeezing between tight-packed cars in a parking lot, or when he's starting up the coffee machine in the office. Fortunately for everybody in the vicinity, Ennoshita is far too level headed a man to cause any accidents of catastrophic proportions. There is, however, a day where Narita catches him spooning crushed red peppers in his coffee.

"Why do we even keep red peppers in the kitchen," Ennoshita grouses, dumping his coffee in the sink and rinsing out the sludge of spicy at the bottom of his mug. "I mean," he stops to consider it, "Oh. Right."

Narita turns off the tap. "Suga's relatively faultless, I think," he says, "but you do have to be careful when you're sharing a kitchen with him."

"I really should know better by now, shouldn't I," Ennoshita says with a sigh, reaching into the cupboard for the sugar. He looks down just to make sure he's got the right one this time around. It's been a month since his promotion, a month of pacing and restlessness, a month of static noise and monotony. It is here, in the office kitchen after a near miss with peppers in his coffee that he realizes: he's stopped counting his mistakes and started counting the weeks since his last, instead. 

"Maybe," Narita says, but he leaves it at that.

 

Week six: 

Kinoshita waves a hand in Ennoshita's face, drops a sheaf of paperwork in front of him. A few papers float off the top of the stack and scatter in a manageable mess on top of the desk. "Are you okay?"

"I think he's pining," Narita says to Kinoshita, tone almost conspiratorial. Kinoshita nods. 

"I don't look that miserable, do I," Ennoshita tries. But it's a futile sort of protest, he knows.

Narita folds his hands together on top of his desk; slow, skeptical. "And here I thought you were reasonably self aware."

He is, actually, reasonably self aware most of the time, but today, he lets his head fall forward and tries very hard not to think about the logistics of finding someone without a cell phone.

 

Week ten:

He doesn't delete the photo. He's not a  _child,_ he can  _deal_  with this, whatever --  _this_  is supposed to be. It's nothing serious, just a nagging discomfort, like splinters on raw-cut wood.

Speaking of.

"You know," he says, making a mental note to buy sandpaper and more band aids after work, "couldn't you have just - gone to Ikea or something?"

"But we wanted that natural look, like, the  _wood_  aesthetic," Hinata says, picking a splinter out of his palm. He inspects his hands, finds a deep scratch dotted with beads of blood. "Oops." 

"He took  _one_  carpenting class in high school," Kageyama says, shooting a glare at Hinata, who makes a face and reaches for the first-aid kit Daichi had hung on the wall two weeks after Hinata and Kageyama had started working at the office.

Ennoshita examines his own hands, finds slender slivers of wood he'll have to dig out later with tweezers. "How about I just give you the number for a company who specializes in this sort of thing?"

 

Week twelve:

"I don't think I've ever seen you drunk," Kinoshita tells him, out of pure scientific interest.

"Don't get him drunk," Narita warns. "Are you going home early today?"

"Yeah, I managed to finish up a little sooner than usual. Also, please don't get me drunk," Ennoshita says, signing out. "Mostly because I don't know what kind of drunk I'd be, and I'm really not sure I want to find out in public."

Kinoshita puffs out his cheeks, hands him his jacket. "You need to live a little more." 

Ennoshita pauses before opening the door. "I'd like to, I think," Ennoshita says. "Just - preferably not via alcohol abuse."

"Understandable," Narita says, and waves him off.

 

Week sixteen: 

A puttering stutter of an engine growl clatters to a stop outside, sounding as if a toaster and a monster truck had fused together and then died an unholy death right there on the sidewalk outside the office building. Ennoshita looks up from his computer, because - there's only one vehicle in the entire world capable of making that awful sound, he's  _sure_ of it. He sits still for a few seconds, well aware that this is: a choice, so easy to make, if he'd just stop overthinking the consequences.

There's only a window and twenty feet stopping him, after all.

So he makes his way over to the window with a vaguely familiar sense of resignation. Somewhere in the back of his head, he has to wonder if the reaction isn't Pavlovian in nature, undoing the window hatch in the meanwhile. It's a very nice day out, as far as in-between-season days go, all clear sky and bright sun. He stops to admire the view, because there isn't anything immediately out of place, at least, until a battered bike pops up in his field of vision like caution tape. "Oh, _god_."

"Hey," Nishinoya half-shouts, tugging off his helmet. A few pigeons bob their heads, hop-skip away in a nervous foxtrot Ennoshita finds he can sympathize with, strangely enough.

"Hold it," Ennoshita tells him, having recovered enough to say something reasonable. "I'm on the second floor, just - just give me a bit - "

Nishinoya cocks his head to the side, eyebrows visibly scrunched up even from two stories down. "What, this doesn't work out?" 

" _No_ ," Ennoshita says, exasperated, " _This_ is disturbing the public peace. Now stay _._ " 

When he steps outside, a little out of breath and yet, feeling a lot more alive than he has in a long while, Nishinoya waves hello, like the last time they'd met had been yesterday instead of months ago. And just like that, things set themselves a little straighter, like hitting play; picking up right where they'd left off. 

Ennoshita finds the composure to give him a frown he doesn't really mean. "I thought you said you'd only driven through here before?" 

"So show me around, then," Nishinoya says. He bounces up on his tiptoes, pulls Ennoshita forward by the belt loops so that their noses bump. "I wanna see _everything_."

"That's kind of a tall order, don't you think," says Ennoshita, trying to choose the best course of action. In the end, he settles for fitting his fingers around Nishinoya's wrist, brushing a knuckle past the jut of bone under skin. 

"You'll manage," Nishinoya says, undeterred. "I mean, we've got time, you know?"

Ennoshita raises an eyebrow, flicks a glance past Nishinoya to the scratched-up motorcycle idling away an abysmally unhealthy amount of smog. _Have you checked your exhaust pipe lately,_ he wants to say, out of consideration for rising carbon dioxide levels and the disappearing ozone layer. What he actually says is: "How long are you in town for?" Judging from all evidence gathered, Nishinoya appears to want a tour guide. Ennoshita's not sure if he qualifies. At any rate, asking to see _everything_ within the span of a few days is perhaps pushing the limits of physical possibility. 

Nishinoya tilts his head, says it like it's the most obvious thing: "As long as you are!"

It takes Ennoshita approximately four seconds to consider the implications of this statement. "Oh," he says, half-hesitant, "So you -"

"Yeah," Nishinoya says, his other hand having somehow found its way up to rest on the back of Ennoshita's neck. "You're not busy, are you?" 

"No, I'm free," Ennoshita starts, because - what else could he say, what else could he _possibly_  say? "I mean, it _is_  the weekend - "

"Cool," Nishinoya says. His smile feels a lot like sunlight, and for a moment Ennoshita feels so disgustingly fond he mistakes it for something like motion sickness at first. He has to check and make sure both of his feet are planted firm on the sidewalk (thus eliminating the possibility of being carsick) before he lets himself think,  _yes, yes, it is._  

"Yeah," Ennoshita says. It's all he needs to say, really, but he can't help adding a little more. "Want to know where we're going first?"

Nishinoya pauses. "Sure?"

Ennoshita nudges the death trap on wheels that Nishinoya calls his motorcycle. "The repair shop."

 

The _last place_ , as it were, ends up being -- home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is all rib's fault (saltinies/centricexit), from the AU to the song choice, but i love her a lot... s/o to sam & nina for reading this like 69 million times i really don't know where i'd be in this mortal life of mine without you


End file.
